Posts by Billy Parrott

March 15, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of the opening of the Battery Park City Branch of The New York Public Library.
We’ve had a very busy year.
Throughout the past twelve months there is one thing I have always tried to remember: The Battery Park City Branch is someone’s first library.
This is where someone will discover their favorite book.
This is where someone will begin his or her lifelong love of reading.
I started using Twitter late in the Summer of ... Read More ›

Last week I started a Tumblr account for The Battery Park City Branch. I'm thinking it will be used for content too long for Twitter and too short for this blog. The majority of the first few posts have been about library related ephemera: comic book art depicting libraries, things found in library books, and anonymous snapshots.

He is arguably the most recognized musician in New York City. The slight smile, patient and reassuring, that greets you every morning as you wait in line at the corner bodega for your coffee and bagel.

Regardless of socioeconomic class or race, from Bed-Stuy to The Bronx, from East Village to the Upper East Side, all New Yorkers know: Dan Smith will teach you guitar.
It is a simple and honest advertisement. Like most good advertising, it is very memorable. Maybe it is so memorable because these ... Read More ›

Sure, there is still the postseason. The Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants are in the World Series, but with the Yankees out of the picture for many New Yorkers the 2010 season of baseball is officially over. This seasonal end to the national pastime combined with the current seasonal change in temperature always brings to mind

What if someone told you that you had one week to live? What would you do? What places would you visit? Would you read any books? Listen to any particular music? Would the common and insignificant things you pass every day become more meaningful? Would that apple taste any better if you know it was your last one? Who would you thank? Who would you apologize to?
This week fifty-five years ago was the last week in the life of ... Read More ›

If you follow The Battery Park City Library on Twitter then you've seen our tweets linking to books that have appeared in the hit television show Mad Men. These titles are a great way to gain insight into the episodes and the social and cultural times in which the series is set. Like the set and costume design, the literary choices of the show really add

A few months ago I began thinking about the earliest books I remember reading and the first librarian I remember. The librarian was an older gentleman named Paige Ellisor. One book in particular stands out in my memory as a favorite. I recently began searching for a copy of that book, to read it again after over thirty years, and to try and see why I found it so memorable.

Like most kids I read a lot of comics. I had various Marvel and DC comics and bunch of those Don Martin Mad Magazine paperbacks. As for books, one of the first I remember reading was

As discussed in my last post, one kind of film within film is when a scene from one movie is shown in another, on a television set or movie screen. As a viewer there is an interesting connection here because we are watching characters in a film and those characters are doing the same thing: watching characters in a film.

Anthony Hopkins' approximately 16 minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs won him the 1991 Academy Award for Best Actor. As far as film villains go, you'd be hard pressed to top Hannibal Lecter, but the portrayal of the sadistic and twisted Frank Booth by

There are only a handful of art forms native to America. Among these are jazz, musical comedy, the mystery novel, and the comic book. As far as comics are concerned there are arguably no characters more beloved and instantly recognizable than Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. After all, the saga of Charlie Brown and his friends is arguably the “longest story told by a single artist” in the history of all mankind. But what do we really know about this cartoonist and his alter ego? In the biography

My tour of the downtown branches of The New York Public Library continues! After being here for a few years and here for the past few months I am now here for a few days. All of this traveling has been a wonderful experience as each branch is as varied and interesting as the neighborhoods they serve.
Spring is around the corner and soon I will be ... Read More ›

It is 8th Street, but from Third Avenue to Avenue A it is called St. Marks Place and is named for St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, which is not even on 8th Street, or St. Marks Place, but at the intersection of 10th Street, Second Avenue, and Stuyvesant Street. The land there has been a site of Christian worship since 1660. The history of St. Marks Place doesn’t go back that far, but a surprising amount of history has happened on these four

January 23, 2010 marks the centennial of the birth of Django Reinhardt. Reinhardt grew up in gypsy camps outside Paris and began playing violin, banjo, and guitar at a young age. A fire destroyed his caravan when he was 18 and he was badly burned. The third and forth fingers of his left hand were partially paralyzed but he amazingly relearned how to play and by the early 1930s he was recording with his Hot Club of France Quintet. All of those solos were

Greenwich Village has many landmarks of music history. The jazz clubs in the area saw the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The bars and clubs that line Bleecker Street and the surrounding area helped popularize folk music in the 1960s. And of course there is that famous little recording studio just south of Jefferson Market on Eighth Street where some of the most important music of the past forty years was recorded. Out of all the Village music landmarks though there is one that absolutely dwarfs them all. In 1941 guitar manufacturer Epiphone was located at